Cities silent and a country frozen

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Expatriate Benjamin Nissan, a beautician who says he likes to dress as Elvis, casts his ballot in Skokie, Illinois, as voting continues in Iraq's first elections in more than 50 years.Photo: AP

As darkness fell across Baghdad - the silence punctuated by
explosions and helicopters - residents, prisoners in their homes,
awaited the unknown.

A weekend of bloodshed seemed certain, but how much blood, and
whose, nobody knew. What would happen after the votes are cast and
counted, who would take power and how the insurgents would respond
- nobody knew that either.

As the promised security lockdown of the country took effect,
the capital became a ghost town, the normally congested streets
empty and still, save occasional gunfire and explosions. People
stocked up on food, just as they did on the eve of the US-led
invasion two years ago. Borders were sealed, curfews extended and
travel banned between provinces and within cities: a country
frozen.

For months commentators have warned that holding the first
democratic poll in decades was an impossibility, or at best an
absurdity, in a climate of daily bombings and shootings.

Insurgents vowed to wreak havoc and in the run-up to the vote an
unrelenting wave of attacks has claimed dozens of lives.

But by last night the resistance had not delivered the promised
cataclysm and the election appeared to be on course. Kurds in the
north and Shiites in the south expressed enthusiasm for voting and
violence radiating from the so-called Sunni triangle had not
totally cowed the centre.

In the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad, yesterday, candidates
from a range of parties said they had been able to campaign
openly.

The province's top election official, Esaad Ramadan, predicted a
100 per cent turnout, an ill-advised echo of the old days of Saddam
Hussein's implausibly well-attended referendums.

Fewer Sunnis are expected to take part in the election because
of the security crisis in their regions and a widespread sense of
bitterness with the US occupation - an imbalance that, at worst,
could propel Iraq into civil war.

It is too early for the US and the Iraqi authorities to claim
success, but the fact that the election is so far not an obvious
failure is largely due to the courage and determination of the
candidates.

The election here has been like no other, and campaigning in
some areas has been surreal.

Take Salamah al-Khafaji. She has made no public appearances,
printed no leaflets, knocked on no doors. And when she casts her
ballot she will be in disguise, her candidacy a secret to most
voters.

In most democracies she would stand no chance; but Iraq is not
most democracies.

Rule number one for any candidate is stay alive. Insurgents
failed to silence her with bullets and threats and she is now
likely to win a seat and possibly a post in the new government,
making her a symbol of resistance to the resistance.

The violence sweeping the country blocked canvassing in her
Shiite base in the south and around Baghdad, so Ms Khafaji used
email to mobilise supporters and travelled in disguise around the
capital.

"I'm not backing down," she said. "For years we have been
prevented from tasting what democracy is and it's important we go
through with these elections."

That iron resolve has cost her son's life and made targets of
other relatives but the 46-year-old, representing the United Iraqi
Alliance list, a grouping of big Shiite parties that is expected to
dominate the poll, won't back down.

During Saddam's regime she was a prominent advocate of women's
and children's rights and, after the dictator fell, she was a
member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council until authority
was handed to an interim government last summer.

She is a moderate and independent Shiite who speaks of reaching
out to the restive Sunni minority.

"I believe that Islam is against forcing things on people," she
says. "Islam gives freedom to people to choose with their own
will."

Under a complex voting system in which people choose parties,
not candidates, she is almost certain to win a place in the
275-seat national assembly.

Most voters are unaware of candidates' identities since the list
of names was published only this week on the internet, to which few
have access. As a recognisable name Ms Khafaji's inclusion bolsters
the credibility of her bloc and the election.

Two weeks ago gunmen dressed as police launched an ambush that
was unsuccessful, largely thanks to more than 25 bodyguards. Her
sister's children were threatened with beheading if she did not
withdraw and her eldest son was killed last year when insurgents
attacked her convoy.